


From the Depths

by Mertiya



Category: Pirates of the Caribbean (Movies)
Genre: Gen, Movie: Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales, Post-Movie(s), Stinger
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-27
Updated: 2017-05-27
Packaged: 2018-11-05 11:44:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 744
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11012763
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mertiya/pseuds/Mertiya
Summary: Let's watch the camera pan a little farther, shall we?





	From the Depths

The wind was howling a mournful dirge, and rain lashed in the dark of the night. The occasional crack of thunder rolled over all the rest of the noise. Two slumbering figures lay in a single bed, one sleeping soundly, the other fitfully. Will rolled to one side, years of snatching naps in between watches having attuned him to even the slightest noise. He’d heard something, a sound out of the ordinary against the backdrop of the storm, but he wasn’t certain what it was. A click, perhaps, or a thud, an asynchronous noise as if someone were moving around.

            Or the opening and closing of a tremendous claw, yes, that would certainly make such a noise—Will sat bolt up right with a gasp, eyes raking the room. Nothing disturbed the quiet of the night, except for the white curtain fluttering wildly at the open window. Nothing to be concerned by; the latch was old and might easily have broken. There would be a puddle on the floor in the morning, no more. He might have risen from the bed to close it, but he did not quite like to. Instead, he reached for Elizabeth, curling in against her warm body as if to stave off the nightmares.

            Down the hall, Carina was sleeping more soundly than anyone else in the house. Without anywhere else to go, she had taken a room with the Turners and—much to Will’s consternation and Elizabeth’s and Henry’s amusement—had procured an old telescope from somewhere and set it up in the basement. It had been a cheap purchase, and she had set herself the difficult task of realigning and refurbishing an object that had been very nearly consigned to the scrap heap already. She had spent most of the previous week down with it and was satisfied that it was now in at least passable shape.

            The door to Henry’s room, between Carina’s and his parents’, unsettled slightly and resettled, swinging slightly ajar and then back shut. In the bed, Henry shivered and turned over, but did not wake. A rhythmic thumping noise traveled down the hallway to Carina’s door.

            Her door opened slightly as Henry’s had. A moment later, a bright flash of lightning illuminated her sleeping face, pressed into the pillow. There was a notebook tucked partway beneath it, open and face-down, where she had fallen asleep in the middle of working out a problem, and her fingers and nose were smudged with pencil lead.

            The thumping paused in the doorway for a moment, and a rivulet of water snaked its way across the floor, reaching another little heap of notebooks that had been piled beneath a chair to the side. A hand reached out and picked them up hurriedly, laying them on the seat of the chair, in an embarrassed, apologetic sort of way. It left a barnacle behind, perched lopsidedly on the pile.

            Thump thump thump. Over to the bedside, where someone felt around until they located the half-melted tallow candle that had guttered out sometime after Carina fell asleep but fortunately without falling over and setting anything unfortunate alight. The soft scratch of flint against steel heralded a little waterfall of sparks that leapt to light the candle, and the person who had used them held it up, shining the light full on Carina’s sleeping face.

            She whimpered slightly, eyes fluttering at the persistent light, and then jerked as the person holding the candle dropped a heavy sack on top of the bedside table with the loud clashing noise of coin against coin. As the person sank heavily to a seat beside the bed, the dripping of water intensified, and it was that noise that brought Carina fully to consciousness.

            She sat up with a strangled curse, feeling for her notebook and muttering something incomprehensible, then managed to drag her eyes open, holding up a hand against the intrusion of the candlelight. “It’s past midnight,” she complained.

            “Ah, well, as to that, I’m afraid me ship got in a little late,” drawled the man in the chair. Carina’s eyes widened as they fell first to the writhing tentacles about the mouth, then upward to the shrewd blue eyes above, crinkled with laughter, though exhaustion was seamed into the cheeks below.

            “Dear god,” Carina said. “What in _god’s_ name…how did you _get_ here?”

            “I could do with a good drink,” Barbossa informed her with a wide grin. “Fair parched, I am.”

           

**Author's Note:**

> Hahahaaaa ow so I have a LOT OF FEELINGS ABOUT THE LATEST MOVIE OKAY and at some point when I am less exhausted I might try to write something a bit longer than this but I needed this to tide me over. Heh. "Tide". Oh god it's 2 AM what am I doing with my life?


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